And the money quote: “This game was lost. … when [Grady] Little, with the score tied in the top of the seventh inning, decided his best possible reliever would be his most struggling starter.”

It hasn’t been an easy couple of days for ol’ Grady. Yesterday’s Times featured a story in which Little was read sections of Feeding the Monster that describe Red Sox management’s take on the man who refused to call on Alan Embree in Game 7 of the ’03 ALCS. “A hunch manager” who exhibited a “total lack of preperation” and “was not capable of dealing with…flexibility and creativity.”

Grady’s response: “I’m not going to lower myself to make any comments on what you’re talking about right there. And I accent the words ‘lower myself.’ Because they run a big business around there, they’ve got to justify everything they do, just like I do as a manager. So, you’ve got to respect them for that. Whatever they’ve got to do to justify their decisions and their moves, so be it. But I’m not lowering myself to comment on it.”

How long before Grady won’t lower himself to comments about his tenure with the Dodgers?

Like this:

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3 Comments → “Here’s a headline that should surprise exactly no one”

umass_amherst

12 years ago

Seth-
I’ve never heard a proper explanation for the front office’s failure to get a closer for the ’03 season.

As for as their collective shock and disgust at Little for mismanaging Game 7, were they watching the ’02 or ’03 (regular season) teams? Clearly Little was overmatched at times, underprepared at others, and unable (or unwilling) to handle the prima donas on the club (although nobody has ever gotten Pedro to show up on time or Manny to run out ground balls). Management had watched Little for a full season before deciding to go with a closer by committee, so the argument that the man was just too dumb to handle it doesn’t hold up without indicting the front office as an enabler.

The current company line is: combining vast financial resources with a strong farm system to field a uniquely talented team. Given the mistakes in recent talent evaluation (Coco, Clement, Seanez, Freddie Sanchez, Hanley, Anabel, Bard, Meredith, f*ck!!) I just wonder where the real onus of “stupidity” lies.

see, umass, if you had made this post one month ago you would have included pedro in that list of horrible front office mistakes.

clement and pavano were both viewed very highly in their free agency seasons by multiple teams.

also, all of the prospects are playing in the NATIONAL LEAGUE. How many good NL pitchers can you name that have come to the AL in the past 2 years and maintained their dominance???

I’m not saying the front office doesn’t make mistakes, because they do. But they make a heck of a lot of good, unpopular calls (like trading nomar, not signing pedro to a 3 year deal, and I believe time will show that not signing damon to a 4 year $60 million deal was a good call as well) that other front offices wouldn’t have had the balls to do.

That’s why they tried closer by committee, because it looked good on paper despite being a wildly unpopular idea. It didn’t work, but a lot of other ideas that they have concoted in the front office have.

For example, despite their “horrible” moves, they’ve managed to put together an offense that has outscored the yankees’ “dominating” lineup every year by a significant margin (while paying significantly less money). Another example is their belief that defense was undervalued – the infield defense the first half of this year was incredible.

My only criticism of the front office is their apparent preference trade for players/sign free agents with good statistics in the NL versus players in the AL – especially now, it should be pretty clear that those stats dont transfer over to the AL (and the front office knew that at the beginning of the season when Epstein said that his computer model simulated that an average AL team would win 10 more games in the NL).